Hello Morning & the Benefits of Three Day Chag

Greeting the new day from the wrong side of sleep. Again.

There's a three day chag coming up and the kvetching has already started. The ridiculous amounts of food, the oily hair, the copious amounts of laundry, all the results of three day dedicated to complete rest.

These three days are like a shaft of sunlight breaking through the gathering stormclouds of the ending semester. Three days, homework free. Three days, when I can remember how to live instead of catching mouthfulls of food between class and a few hours of sleep, head pillowed on a textbook.

After the first day, I begin to feel human.
Come the second day, I relax, reassured that the world has indeed continued turning for 24 hours without my assistance.
On the third day, I finally look out my window at the glowing world and remember how very grateful I am to be alive and Jewish.

In galut, we have an extra day. Apparently to remind us of the Jerusalemaic nature of the calendar.

But perhaps, we who live surrounded by a world that runs ceaselessly, need a bit longer to remember that menucha not only means cessation of work, but a serenity of the soul.